Description: What is the best way to auction an asset? How should a group of
people organize themselves to ensure the best provision of public
goods? How should exchanges be organized? In An Introduction to
the Theory of Mechanism Design, Tilman Börgers addresses these
questions and more through an exploration of the economic theory of
mechanism design. Mechanism design is reverse game theory. Whereas
game theory takes the rules of the game as a given and makes
predictions about the behavior of strategic players, the theory of
mechanism design goes a step further and selects the optimal rules
of the game.